As I posted a couple weeks ago, Anchorman 2 has finally been green lit. After an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Adam McKay gives us reasons why it has taken so long to get the green light and tells a just a hint at the story line. All we know so far is that the majority of the cast will return, however no deals have been official signed. The only cast member in question would be whether or not they decide to bring back Veronica Corningstone, Christina Applegate’s character.

The main reason Anchorman 2 hasn’t happened just yet is of course due to money. This is what McKay had to say about that:

Originally, I was saying, ‘Hey, $80 million budget because it’ll be period, and you gotta pay the stars,’ and they were, like, ‘Are you crazy?’ And then quickly I was, like: ‘All right, fine, $60 million, and we can make it work. We’ll all take pay cuts,’ and they were still, like, ‘Are you out of your mind?’

To me, Anchorman 2 could definitely make more money than the original. If you haven’t noticed, since Anchorman cast members Paul Rudd and Stevel Carrell’s career’s have taken off significantly now adding an additional box office draw to the sequel. After another project fell through at Paramount, the studio approached Will Ferrell and Adam McKay about the sequel:

Two things happened. We tried to set this other movie up for Will and Vince [Vaughn] that ended up being, once again, a crazy low offer, no back end, at Paramount, and that didn’t happen. And then the other thing that happened was I did some work on The Dictator for Sacha [Baron Cohen], kind of helping out. And I think the combination of those two things with a movie falling through, I think they saw the numbers on the other one and were like, “Wait a minute, if we’re looking at these numbers for an original Will/Vince one, and we have this other franchise that’s guaranteed to at least get you to here, why wouldn’t we do this for just a little bit more?” I think some of the numbers suddenly started rubbing against each other. And I think the other thing was, I suddenly was working with them again as a writer and as a little bit of a producer/director. They started looking at The Dictator and having fun working with me on that, and I think all three things kind of perfect stormed into, You know what? Let’s do this.

The hilarious duo that is McKay and Ferrell have been working on a script hoping to shoot sometime in early 2013 with a Summer 2014 release. As to the official plot of the upcoming sequel, this is what McKay had to say:

We have a basic idea. I’ll tell you we’re staying roughly period, and I would just say it’s the next stage in the development of American media and news. The fun of these characters is they confront change very poorly. [laughs] So they’ve got some more change coming their way. I can say that pretty safely.

Overall, I am satisfied with what information we have been given about the upcoming Anchorman 2. I am sure as time goes by we will be getting tons more leaked information that will keep the hype up at a steady level.

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